This book was originally published in 1982. For the majority of English-speaking readers Russian literature means above all great prose writers: Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Chekhov, the Pasternak of Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenitsyn. However, even casual observers have become aware that poetry has always mattered in Russian society more than in most Western countries, and many non-specialist Western readers have discovered through a number of fine translations the tremendous power and richness of twentieth-century Russian poetry. Peter France has been closely involved in some of the translation work and he has now produced a serious and detailed study of modern Russian poetry aimed at readers with little or no Russian. The book traces the main developments in Russian poetry over the last two hundred years and concentrates on major poets who have of late become increasingly well known in English-speaking countries through the publication of good poetic translations.
